The NOT Transient Explore: an Odyssey

I will describe the NOT Transient Explorer (NTE). NTE is designed to be an instrument that can be permanently mounted (together with FIES) at the NOT where it will allow that NOT to a powerful facility for follow-up observations of transient sources like supernovae, kilo novae, and afterglows of gamma-ray bursts. In addition, the instrument will provide capabilities requested from other interests in the user community. NTE will allow spectroscopy from the UV to the K-band with resolution of about 4000 as well as simultaneous optical and near-IR imaging. Spectropolarimetry is also part of the design. The NTE project has been somewhat of an Odyssey and I will also try to describe some of the Scyllas and Charybdisses we have encountered along the way.